Wallabies captain James Horwill has got away scot-free for tap-dancing on the head of British Lions forward Alun-Wyn Jones when TV replays appeared to show him trampling without due care and attention.

Another Aussie rugby star, Digby Ioane, could be in trouble with the law after a warrant was issued for his arrest for failing to answer bail on an assault charge in court.

And with only one seed in the singles draw at Wimbledon, Aussie survivors in the second week at the All England Club could be rarer than confirmed sightings of Shergar, Elvis and Lord Lucan.

On a brighter note, the Socceroos have qualified for the 2014 World Cup in Brazil, and we congratulate them for progressing from a tough group which included the Teletubbies, Antarctic Eskimos and Timor Morris Dancers.

G'day, cobbers - the strewth hurts, doesn't it?

Australian sport is in meltdown, and when distant observers in the Mother Country have stopped laughing, we might actually find it quite sad. But not for the next 10 years.

Leading the way in this implosion of green and gold is the shambles formerly known as Australia's cricket team.

Since the retirement of all-time greats Shane Warne, Glenn McGrath, Adam Gilchrist and Ricky Ponting, their fortunes have gone downhill faster than the Cresta Run.

The Aussies have lost three of the last four Ashes series, and if England remember to hold the bat at the thin end over the next six months, they should make it five out of six.

South African hired hand Arthur went out as an expedient fall-guy for an invincible team's descent into chaos, and his replacement Darren Lehmann - a top geezer who excelled as an adopted Yorkshireman in county cricket for 10 years - will surely play the sheepdog role expertly. He will round them up and point them in the right direction.

(Image: Michael Steele)

But Arthur was in charge when the Aussies were whitewashed 4-0 in India, when four players were suspended for failing to hand in their homework on time, when David Warner clocked England's Joe Root in a bar at 2am, and when they failed to land a meaningful blow in the Champions Trophy.

This correspondent's best guess is that captain Michael Clarke, who resigned as a selector in the fall-out from Arthur's sacking, is not long for the officers' mess. He is hurtling headlong towards a rather different sort of mess.

But Horwill's escape for a blatant stamping offence added insult to the catalogue of injuries racked up by both sides. Rhyming slang connoisseurs can make up their own jokes about judicial officer Nigel Hampton, but his not-guilty verdict was, to say the least, contentious.

TV umpire Bruce Oxenford was another one-eyed judge whose interpretation of the evidence set before him over the weekend did not match the majority consensus.

Aussie Oxenford was virtually alone in deciding Ian Bell had been stumped in England's narrow Champions Trophy final defeat by India. Normally reserved in his public proclamations, England skipper Alastair Cook snapped: "It was a poor decision."

Yes, it's been a distinguished 48 hours for Australian sport. The wonderful country which brought us Warne, Ian Thorpe, David Campese, Rod Laver and Cathy Freeman is in danger of sending Sir Les Patterson out to open the batting or bed down in the scrum.

Of course, the truth is that some of us remain envious of Australia's wide-open spaces and a cultural identity nourished by sporting prowess.

But when it all goes pear-shaped, forgive us our Press passes, Yes, the strewth hurts.